Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Gujarat Riots: The True Story - The Truth of the 2002 riots - Myths of Gujarat Riots - 3

Myth 3: Whole of Gujarat was burning

Fact:Out of the state’s 18,600 villages, 240 municipal towns, and 25 district headquarters, only 60 places saw riots. If one includes the two big cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara, by the wildest stretch of imagination, only 2 % of the state can be assumed to have been burning. Only 40 out of the state’s 18,600 villages saw riots. Had the state government been involved in the riots-or wanted to encourage the riots-it could have created riots in 10,000 out of Gujarat’s 18,600 villages. In the past curfew has been placed in 300 villages at the same time. As compared to that-absolutely nothing happened in 2002.

Also- only 12 out of 25 districts of Gujarat saw any violence. Remaining 13 were completely untouched by riots. So- less than half of the districts saw the riots- and most areas of the districts which saw riots were peaceful.

Saurashtra and Kutch account for one-third of Gujarat. Riots did not even touch these parts, either in cities or in villages even in the first three days. These places account for 58 out of Gujarat’s 182 Assembly seats. After the first three days riots took place only in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and some places near Godhra in Panchmahal district. That is to say-after 2nd March 2002 riots had stopped in almost the whole of Gujarat. The real riots happened only in the first 3 days-and the violence progressively reduced in these 3 days. After the first three days-riots were limited to cities only-by and large. But in Saurashtra and Kutch-no riots took place even in the first three days-even in cities. And villages of Saurashtra and Kutch were completely untouched by the riots.

Even outside Saurashtra and Kutch, riots stopped completely in North and South Gujarat after 3 days-with not even a single killing in either of the two parts. Only in some parts of Central Gujarat did the riots occur after 3 days-and only in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and some parts near Godhra.

But the media lied at that time and has also lied ever since that the whole of Gujarat was burning. Around 6 December 2002, Narendra Modi was invited on Star News- NDTV’s programme ‘Hotline’. In that programme, the anchor Pankaj Pachouri asked Narendra Modi this question. He said, “Your party always gains because of the riots. But no riots took place in Saurashtra and Kutch, so you are all set to lose there. How will you respond to this?” To that question, Narendra Modi replied,

“When 2 % of Gujarat was burning, you were saying that the whole of Gujarat is burning. Now you are saying that no riots took place in Saurashtra and Kutch. So first you apologize for lying that the entire state was burning when only 2 % of the state was burning.”

These malicious lies of the media were exposed twice. Once during the time of the riots in Gujarat in March-April 2002. And second, during the Gujarat Assembly elections of December 2002. After the BJP’s huge victory in Gujarat in December 2002, the media again ignored these facts and lied that the whole of Gujarat was burning. The BJP is too passive to ever remind the media of its own lies and its own true reporting. It has never bothered to expose the truth of Gujarat, and attack the media for lying that the whole of Gujarat, including Saurashtra and Kutch were also burning.